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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28707699">Nothing In This World I Wouldn't Do</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles'>stardustedknuckles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergent, Canon Timeline, Early Relationship, F/F, Feeblemind Spell, Flash Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:40:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,452</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28707699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They'll get out of here one way or the other, but in the meantime Beau needs their help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Caleb Widogast &amp; Yasha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>234</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nothing In This World I Wouldn't Do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Set her down here." Caleb shrugged out of his coat and spread it on the stone floor, smoothing it as flat as he could before looking up again. "Yasha," he called softly. "She'll be alright. But we need to look at that wound."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha was staring blankly at the mound of boulders that had collapsed the tunnel they were now trapped in, an unconscious Beauregard limp and bleeding in her arms. With effort, she faced Caleb and carried Beau to the closest thing they had to a cot in here. Caleb didn't have a medical kit, but he always kept fresh bandages for his arms and this would not be the first time they came in handy for something like this.</p><p> </p><p>It was no secret how much of Yasha was steel-wrapped softness, but the way she lowered Beau onto the floor and cradled her head reinforced to Caleb just how much of a different bond the two of them had managed to form in their quiet moments. His lights hovered above, and in their glow they almost made a painting - a fallen hero, a lamenting angel.</p><p> </p><p>"I'm worried about that spell." Yasha's voice seemed flat and tinny in the closed-off space - a reminder that they were trapped, and breathing would become an issue if they didn't find a way to solve this quickly. "She looked…wrong, before she got hit."</p><p> </p><p>Caleb had seen it too, the unfocused sheen that had replaced her determined expression in the moment before the cavern began to shake around them. "I have three guesses," he said quietly as he checked over Beau's cut. "None of them are good, but one is definitely worse. Here." He pointed to the place where the gash ran deepest, and Yasha reached out immediately with a muttered prayer on her lips and light gathering at the tips of her fingers.</p><p> </p><p>Beau's cut sealed itself and she stirred, eyes fluttering open as Caleb worked the bandages over her as quickly and gently as he could. He hoped he was very wrong about what had hit her, but their luck had been shit today and he wasn't hedging his bets.</p><p> </p><p>"Hey," Yasha whispered. Beau jumped, eyes wandering towards her voice immediately but seeming unable to stay in any one place. Her breathing grew rapid and shallow, and then she seemed to notice Caleb's hands on her for the first time and gave a muted grunt of raw fear and confusion that was at odds with the version of her that he knew.</p><p> </p><p>"It's okay," he said quickly, but his heart was already sinking. Beau's hands scrabbled to push his away, clumsy and blunt in a way he wasn't used to from her, and then she grabbed at her head and made another pained sound.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha reached out a hand and turned wide eyes to Caleb. "Please tell me this isn't the worse one."</p><p><br/>
Caleb watched Beau curled in a ball with her fingers digging into her undercut and felt something sharp twist inside of him. "I'm sorry," he said, though to Beau or Yasha he wasn't certain. "I think it most certainly is."</p><p> </p><p>"Is she going to be okay?" An edge of alarm in Yasha's voice now, and Caleb rested a hand on her bicep to level her with what he hoped was a grounding stare.</p><p> </p><p>"She will be, as soon as we get her out of here and in the hands of Jester or Caduceus," he said. "For now, she's just…running on instinct."</p><p> </p><p>"Oh," said Yasha softly. "I…so she doesn't trust us?" Her outstretched hand faltered, her expression folding in something like sorrow, and for a moment Caleb was starkly reminded of the moment when Beau had asked him to carry her once, in a stupor where Yasha could hear. It was that same mask of terrible loss, a grief that wound through all the places hurt would go if Yasha were a more selfish type. She seemed to recognize intuitively that this was not about either of them - it would never cease to amaze Caleb how similar he was to Beauregard and to Yasha in different ways. If his heart was a shadow of what it once was, Yasha's cast it.</p><p> </p><p>He looked again to Beau. "I think her headband might be making things worse," he said softly. "It is a very powerful magical item at odds with an even more powerful spell. Beau might not be able to talk to us, but she should be able to know us. Something's blocking her, I think." He shuffled forward on his knees, making as much noise as possible so as to not catch her by surprise. He'd seen what those fists could do, and he was not keen to be on the other end of them. "Beauregard," he murmured. "Are you -"</p><p> </p><p>She swung blindly with the force of someone who didn't know their own strength, and only a lack of intent and coordination kept Caleb's jaw from dislocating as his head snapped to the side with a dull sort of sound. In the glimpse he got of her as her arm extended, Beau had looked to be in the kind of anguish that surpassed human limits and resulted in a blank, wide-eyed stare.</p><p> </p><p>It was disconcerting, to see such a familiar expression on someone else's face. On <em>this </em> face, of the closest thing he had to a sister.</p><p> </p><p>"Okay," he said, rubbing his jaw. "I am going to feel that one tomorrow. Yasha?" She turned to him, resolute now. Something in Beau's wild punch had settled her, like she better understood the rules of what was happening. Perhaps there was something about her rage that made her feel connected to Beau in this state. "If you can get her to calm down, I can work her free from the diadem," he said. "It might make this easier for her if she is less aware of what she cannot do."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha looked vaguely ill now, but she nodded and took a deep breath before turning to the ball of fear and frustration backed into the corner. "Beau," she said gently, creeping forward with a hand out. "It's Yasha. Let me help you, okay?" He could almost see the moment she hit Beau's personal airspace, her body snapping into defense on a reflex that surpassed conscious thought and knocked Yasha's arm viciously aside.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha rolled with the hit and brought her arm back around in one smooth movement, entirely unperturbed, and focused on Beau's face. "It's okay," she soothed, and when Beau's arm shot out again it was to grip Yasha up near the inside of her elbow tight enough to whiten the battered knuckles. If she was hurting Yasha at all, she gave no indication. She just moved slowly closer and lifted her other hand to touch Beau's face.</p><p> </p><p>Beau flinched immediately, but not away - Caleb noted with small surprise the way Beau's chin immediately nuzzled into Yasha's palm like she was trying to bury her face in the callouses there. Her eyes screwed shut and she gave a whimper that he knew Yasha felt as keenly as he did.</p><p> </p><p>"Come here," Yasha murmured. Her movements as she drew Beau to her chest were infinitely slow and controlled, and reacted not at all to the way Beau seemed to be of two instincts about being touched. Yasha handled this feral version of Beau with every shred of the same gentleness with which she folded a new flower between the pages of her book, and Caleb found himself wondering what such a mind-breaking effect might do to her instead. Would they find more of the primal savagery she unleashed in battle on their behalf, or would they find that her vicious ability to swing a sword had in fact been driven into her as a way to defend her natural softness?</p><p> </p><p>Watching her hold Beau against her chest and continue to whisper reassurances into her uncomprehending ear, seeing how Beau's natural inclination was to fall in, Caleb thought the answer was decidedly clear cut.</p><p> </p><p>"Keep holding her," he said softly. "Undo her hair please, if she will let you."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha gave no sign she had heard him, but the hand rubbing at Beau's back over her fur-lined cloak drifted up a little further with each stroke until she was able to grasp the first of the ties holding Beau's braid and tug it gently away with little more than a shiver from Beau. Her hands stayed covering her face as though to block out everything she could, and Caleb had little trouble understanding what it must feel like - to know yourself completely capable of action and aware of a situation but entirely helpless to react in any meaningful way.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha was speaking in Celestial now, a language Caleb understood but didn't bother to translate, as she pulled the topmost tie free and let Beau's hair fall in a soft wave. She looked over Beau's head to nod to Caleb, and when he approached this time, Beau gave no indication she had noticed him.</p><p> </p><p>His fingers felt broad and clumsy next to the intricate braids that held her headband in place, but Beau made little in the way of movements to react and each of them were soothed away by a tightening of Yasha's arms or a soft stroke to her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, the headpiece came free. For a moment, nothing seemed to change, and then Beau's rigid body relaxed and slumped against Yasha's chest. Her hand came up to grip at the leather of Yasha's shirt, and though her eyes still darted from place to place in the room it seemed as though she wasn't dealing so much with an influx of information she could do nothing about. The awareness of her situation had faded, and the helpless frustration and physical lockdown with it.</p><p> </p><p>"Okay," Caleb breathed. "Now we problem solve." He slid the headpiece into his pouch and sat back on his heels.</p><p> </p><p>Beau made a panicked noise immediately and reached for him, gripping his shoulder with the strength of someone unable to sense and analyze things like pressure and bone configuration. He winced. "Ow, ow, Beauregard, I need that arm." Her grip didn't loosen, but he kept his voice soft as he worked his fingers up under her palm and rubbed his thumb in slow circles there. He was able to coax her hand from his shoulder and hold it, and once Beau was satisfied to be touching both of them she relaxed again.</p><p> </p><p>"We have to get those boulders moved," he said to Yasha.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha seemed transfixed by the way Beau was slumped against her, alert but determined to stay touching them. Caleb could understand - he was unsurprised by Beau's insistence to keep touching Yasha, of course, but her will to remain touching him as well had his mind turning.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha had clearly already arrived at the possibility brewing in him. "Do you think she always wants to be touched?" She lifted a hand and hesitantly stroked Beau's hair. Beau didn't react, but then it was hard to imagine her body language shifting any more into "secure" than it was now.</p><p> </p><p>"I think that perhaps I underestimated how intentional she has learned to be, our friend," Caleb replied. "She may not even remember herself that she wanted this once, that it is something she considers a need." He smiled, but there was no warmth in it and Yasha took none from it. "I think the only one that could make Beauregard Lionett believe she feels differently than she attests is Beauregard herself."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha sat in silence for a moment. "Will she remember this?"</p><p> </p><p>Caleb patted his pouch. "I am almost certain she will recall everything up until we removed her headpiece. After that, I can't be sure. I would hazard a guess that she will recall impressions more than memories."</p><p> </p><p>"Oh." Yasha sounded conflicted. "That's probably for the best then, isn't it?"</p><p> </p><p>Caleb's mind whited with nonexistent noise for a moment, and then he heard the projection of Jester's voice like an autonomous memory. "Caleb! We beat them. Are you guys okay? Beau isn't responding. We're going to get you out. We won't take long!"</p><p> </p><p>He waited.</p><p> </p><p>"Was Beau kissing Yasha?"</p><p> </p><p>There it was. He smiled. "We are okay, but come quietly if you can. Beau cannot talk right now, but it is nothing we cannot fix, I think."</p><p> </p><p>He turned to Yasha. "They're coming to get us out." He glanced at Beau. "That is good. My best idea was to turn into a mammoth, and I don't think Beauregard would have taken that well." Her hand was warm and relaxed in his, and he squeezed it fondly. "No fun scaring the piss out of her if she is in no state to react in kind."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha still looked lost in thought, but her mouth quirked. "I wonder if she will ever let me do this when her mind isn't…turned off. I don't like to even think of it as a silver lining. What if she's upset later?"</p><p> </p><p>Caleb looked pointedly from Beau pressed against Yasha's chest and back to her eyes. "I think all three of us will know it is a cover and why. Give it time." He considered their joined hands, his spindly fingers woven between her bruise-dusted knuckles. "I wonder what I might be like in her position. What you would learn about me or I about myself."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha frowned. "I think I would want to know someone's secrets on their terms," she said softly. "This feels like cheating, or seeing something I shouldn't." There it was again, that heart beating true in Yasha. Did she know how miraculous it was, that she should be and remain so guileless after everything? He was used to feeling dirty - the juxtaposition didn't bother him. It was nice to be reminded that there were people like Yasha, who could hold both the cruelty of the world and such a light in them at once.</p><p> </p><p>They both watched her for a minute; Beau didn't even register their attention. They were a non-threat. Friends, when even the concept likely held no meaning to her. One of her own on a base level. "I don't think it is new information," he mused finally. "If it helps. I think it is just louder, perhaps, in this circumstance. But I do know what you mean."</p><p> </p><p>There came a dull thud from the rocks, so distant that Caleb was unsure if He'd heard it but for the way Beau's head lifted slightly.</p><p> </p><p>"They are coming," he said, relieved. "Let's get everyone home and sort this out."</p><p> </p><p>Yasha nodded. "That sounds like a great idea."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm considering a part 2, we'll see.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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